Kill Screen Archives: Filipe Salgado

May 1 Essays

Too Little, Too Late

Environmental simulation Fate of the World lets you advance the world, only to end up destroying it. Filipe Salgado wonders why futility leads to such persistence.

Mar 30 Reviews

No More Fog in Silent Hill

Is it possible to preserve classic videogames? The new rendition of the Silent Hill series shows that technology can undermine the best intentions, and old illusions are easily broken.

Mar 19 Essays

Unlevel Design

How does the other half play? Our one-time casino correspondent rides the bus to Niagara Falls and tries to get used to losing, being lost, and loathing games.

Feb 29 Essays

The Unauthorized and Incomplete Story of the IGF Pirate Kart

What happens when you combine more than 100 renegade game developers, 300 off-the-cuff games they made, and a mock failed submission to the Independent Games Festival? Filipe Salgado brings us into the sporadic and rebellious world of the 2012 IGF Pirate Kart to talk with some of the minds behind the collective about how they came together and why it's important to make bad games.

Feb 24 Reviews

Review: Don't Play Sports With Justin Smith

Want to feel the sand between your toes and the ocean spray in your face, to hear the crowds ooh and ahh over your pirouettes in the sky? Justin Smith's Realistic Summer Sports Simulator is not your game.

Feb 17 Reviews

Review: Homeless, Gaming's Photo 101

Filipe Salgado on the independent game Homeless, which attempts to express the plight of the homeless with repeated presses of the A button. Questions remain: Why does the homeless man think he deserves to be homeless? And how did he get X-ray vision?

Feb 3 Reviews

Review: NFL Blitz

Regardless of one's familiarity of the game, some sports games just fall flat. Filipe Salgado paints a picture of why NFL Blitz won't have Madden worrying about competition anytime soon.

Feb 1 Profiles

Profile: Stephen Lavelle

One of the most prolific developers in the burgeoning indie game scene, Stephen Lavelle recently released his first large-scale game production with English Country Tune. Filipe Salgado catches up with the recuperating developer about the transition from small to large games, the difference between coding for a studio and developing his own indie games, and the importance of reading.

Jan 19 Reviews

Review: The Sims Social

Chances are you've heard of The Sims, Will Wright's mega-hit about living, having feelings, and dying. What happens when that dollhouse game meets Facebook, a social experiment of a very different character? Filipe Salgado argues it's a match made in hell.

Jan 3 Essays

The Year Forgotten

Our senior writer Filipe Salgado bought his first console since the NES. He wonders why he can't remember any of the Xbox 360 games he played in 2011, and looks back on his indie roots.

Dec 30 Articles

Flash Forward: These Robotic Hearts of Mine

A simple tale about a boy, a girl, a robot, a robot factory, and a million hearts. What, you don't know that one?

Dec 28 Articles

Flash Forward: PoleRiders

Whack a pole and watch fun and tragedy unfold in unison! Filipe Salgado pays tribute to QWOP and GIRP creator Bennett Foddy's latest miscreation.

Dec 20 Reviews

Review: Swift*Stitch

The videogame that will make you forget how to play videogames has arrived! Filipe Salgado sizes up the twisted Swift*Stitch.

Dec 15 Reviews

Review: Bullet Audyssey

What is a mute button doing in a game constructed around music? Bullet Audyssey is not so much music as it is just racket. Filipe Salgado explains.

Dec 13 Reviews

Review: English Country Tune

The first commercial game from auteur Stephen Lavelle, English Country Tune turns a cold and logical framework into exactly what it wasn't supposed to be—a murky narrative.

Dec 9 Reviews

Review: King of Dragon Pass

By combining fantasy and strategy, King of Dragon Pass allows you to write your own history. Filipe Salgado on why even the smallest decisions matter.

Dec 8 Reviews

Review: Saints Row: The Third

Volition's insane answer to Grand Theft Auto is less a reinterpretation than a novelty outfit. Filipe Salgado sees a lot of purple but it's the same old, same old.

Dec 7 Essays

Coloring Machines

The musician and artist Roberto Carlos Lange talks to us about making art with Atari Video Music, a childhood playing with machines, and seeing music.

Dec 1 Reviews

Review: Meanwhile

Is interactive really the future of comic books? Filipe Salgado explains why the "choose your own adventure" app may not hold up to its book form.

Nov 23 Columns

Make or Break

An Independent Games Festival entry presents a new trial for Portugal's fledging game development scene. Filipe Salgado looks at the unusual origins of Seed Studios' PlayStation Network strategy game Under Siege.

Nov 22 Reviews

Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Bethesda's new role-playing game is finally free enough to be all things to everyone, even those with a dim and narrow view of humanity. Filipe Salgado looks at the why and how of self-expression in Skyrim.

Nov 17 Reviews

Review: Batman: Arkham City

In contrast to the urgency of Arkham Asylum, the latest Batman installment nearly suffocates with its diversions. Filipe Salgado chronicles his turn in Arkham City.

Oct 31 Reviews

Review: Encyclopedia Fuckme and the Case of the Vanishing Entree

This ain't your older brother's dating sim. By Filipe Salgado

Oct 25 Reviews

Review: Wizorb

Filipe Salgado decided the best way to describe this quite familiar, and strangely unfamiliar, relative of Breakout was to tell its origin story.

Oct 12 Reviews

Review: The Binding of Isaac

A twin-stick shooter tackles a biblical story and keeps the gore, Old Testament-style.

Sep 29 Reviews

Review: Last Window: The Secret of Cape West

A late studio still has valuable lessons to teach us about world building and the art of noir. Filipe Salgado reviews the obscure sequel to an overlooked mystery, Hotel Dusk: Room 215.

Aug 18 Reviews

Review: The Stanley Parable

Filipe Salgado reviews a joke with many, many, many punch lines.

Jul 21 Reviews

Review: Tiny Tower

Filipe Salgado plays the waiting game du jour, and asks: how little can it take to make a compelling game about building?

Jun 24 Reviews

Review: Feed Me Oil

An attempt to review a handheld physics game that attempts to reinvent a proven formula, and succeeds, we guess.

Jun 7 Reviews

Review: Hipster City Cycle

Port 127's Hipster City Cycle is a game in constant motion. Filipe Salgado rides through the satirical 8-bit world on his fixie bike, right into the good graces of hipsterdom.

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